


Can you buy love at Walmart?

by MakeAStriderSmile



Category: Deadpool - All Media Types
Genre: Definitely an AU, Fun and flirts are had, M/M, Nate is a name-brand supermarket cashier, This is a complete WIP and please do not expect quality i am a trash being, Wade is trying to get on Nate's nerves
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-05-24
Updated: 2018-06-30
Packaged: 2019-05-13 09:28:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 6,673
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14746239
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MakeAStriderSmile/pseuds/MakeAStriderSmile
Summary: This comes from a late-night rambling I was doing on the Cablepool discord, bless those lovely people for spurring on my eternal sins.This is an AU in which Nate is a bored Walmart cashier that has to deal with the increasingly confusing and weird items that Wade Wilson places on his checkout line, and also maybe falls in love along the way?WIP!





	1. The First (and arguably worst) Meeting

[--should have enough for rent this week, one chocolate bar won’t hurt!] says the thoughts of the young person of indeterminate gender in front of Nathan as he pushes through their purchases, the conveyor belt still slightly sticky from whatever that lady from an hour ago with the superiority complex and hair that just begged Nate to mockingly say ‘ _shall I get the manager for you?_ ’ had spilled on it. He guessed some kind of skincare product. He hadn’t been on this register an hour ago, though, so he’d only heard the fringes of it from his seat in the break room, and seen her through the eyes of the poor cashier that had been at the register at the time.

 

Telepathy sure did make this job fun, he thought, even as, out loud, he asks, putting on his usual mildly bemused customer service tone, “Will that be all today?”

 

The customer shakes themself, as if they had barely noticed he was there, and shoot him a lopsided little smile, even as they toss a Snickers bar onto the conveyor belt. “Just this, thanks, then I’m good.”

 

He nods, informs them wryly that he thinks it’s a fine choice, scans it through, and offers them a smile. “That’ll be eighty four dollars, seventy nine cents, thank you, will you be paying with cash or card?” The customer brandishes their credit card, he pushes the payment through to the little pin-pad scanner thing he never really bothered to remember the name of, though he was sure it was impressive enough and vaguely tech-ish, and when the payment goes through, he wishes them a good day, already reaching out with his mind for the next customer, not particularly wanting to listen to their new thoughts of: [Wow, he’s kinda cute, if you go for the rugged type, wonder if he--].

 

Imagine his surprise when his mind meets little more than static. Disjointed, kind of crazy static. Clearly this was no ordinary person.

 

His suspicions of this are confirmed not by the customer’s appearance, no, he hasn’t even looked at them yet. No, what has confirmed his suspicions is the assortment of items that seem to have just been  _ dropped  _ onto the conveyor belt, entirely thoughtlessly, and uncaring of that unknown stickiness.

 

Six cucumbers; relatively average in size, one a little curved. A seemingly jumbo box of unflavored gelatin powder. He didn’t even know they sold those here. Finally, a similarly sized box, which he also didn’t know they sold here, of condoms, the bright purple packaging proclaiming proudly in a blocky silver font, ‘Extra Small!’ as if that was a point of pride in their sales tactic.

  
When he looks up, for a half second, he kind of wishes he hadn’t. But the moment hardly lasts, because the man, and he’s pretty sure it is a man under all the thick, ropy scarring that covers his face, spreading down his neck and down past the collar of his shirt, is staring right at him with big brown eyes, so uncomfortably earnest, at odds with the kaleidoscopic insanity of his unreadable mind, and his voice is rumbling, hollow, and surprisingly pleasant when he says steadily, “This is  _ exactly  _ what it looks like.”


	2. The Second (incomprehensible) Meeting

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Do they sell bags of milk in Walmart? Who fucking knows, but if they don't, they do now.

At first, he could swear Wade (and his name was Wade, apparently, the man having introduced himself sort of sheepishly after his… unconventional first impression) was stalking him. He couldn’t exactly prove it, after his first disastrous attempt to read his mind, he picked up absolutely nothing from him, and so picking him out of the crowd was kind of impossible. 

 

But he was kind of a paranoid sort of guy, coming off of years of what he considered mostly just dicking around at Professor Xavier’s school, less controlling his powers and more just prodding gently at the limits of them, making sure he could use them safely in public, in a building that seemed to be raided by so called ‘supervillains’ every second Tuesday.

 

At the tender age of 28, he seemed to be sufficiently prepared to deal with a city full of buzzing minds, and left with little more than a handshake for his professor, another for his father, and a hug for his semi-kind of-sort of mother. He had immediately moved out and away, to a small American town just off the border to Florida, and he loved it here. Minds so simple that they hardly gave him pause, only slight structural issues in some of the longstanding buildings that he had easily fixed, and a Walmart, because Walmarts are everywhere. 

 

How could he possibly ever want to leave a place so purely… plain? It leveled out his abilities, giving him the freedom to push the virus crawling up his arm down to the curve of his shoulder, instead of halfway up his face like it had been when he’d boarded at the Professor’s school.

 

So, the feeling of being stalked was perhaps not new to him, but it was unfamiliar enough in this little town he’d made a home in for the past 6 or so years that he paid attention.

 

It took him a week and a half to realize that he had been actively seeking out Wade W. Wilson every time he was on shift, and every shift he didn’t see him, well.

He didn’t want to say he was  _ disappointed _ , but a little put out at best.

 

Until one day, he reaches out for his next customer, finding little more than buzzing nothingness, and 17 bags- yes, bags, like they sell in Canada- of milk are placed down onto the belt, thankfully not a sticky one this time.

 

Wade Wilson smiles at him, disarming and surprisingly handsome under all the scarring that he refused to talk about, and cocks his head as if regarding him, like some kind of puzzle. Or a Rubik’s Cube that he was about to twist and turn until he formed a coherent cube of color.

 

“You know we don’t sell these here, right?” Nate asks wryly, voice less customer service and more amused exasperation.

 

“It’s a fanfiction, handsome, I can buy whatever I want.” The man replies easily, as if that was a  _ totally  _ normal thing to say.

 

Nate blinks at him. Blinks again. “You.. I… what.” He’s kind of not sure whether he’s dwelling on the ‘fanfiction’ part of this, the ‘handsome’ part, or the part where Wade insinuates, all in all, that he is some kind of meta-bending customer service nightmare.

 

...Then again, that does kind of sound like him.

 

“Just scan them through, Summers, it’ll be just fine.” He is assured, those unsettlingly earnest eyes catching his again as his smile widens. “If it doesn’t work, I’ll…. Hm, I dunno, owe you a favor. Of any kind, of course. General, menial, assassination, sexual, roughing up, sensual massage, I’m your guy.”

 

Nate isn’t even going to  _ touch  _ that.

 

The fact that the bags go through the checkout without so much as an error is surely some kind of mistake. Whether it’s a scanning mistake or just a purely divine mistake, Nate doesn’t know, and he raises his eyes heavenward, almost as if to say, ‘Really, Lord, you are testing me here’.

 

Wade blows a kiss to him as he pushes his cart full of bags of bagged milk out of the store. The heat that lingers on Nathan’s cheeks for the next half hour is due purely to the stuffy lack of air conditioning and the approaching hot season. In case anyone happened to be curious.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> seriously though whats up with the milk bags


	3. The one with the rubber gloves

This time, his arrival is heralded not by the touch of Nate’s mind against nothingness. No, it’s the tinny ringing of ‘Take on Me’ by A-Ha, and the gravelly rumble of Wade’s voice as he hums along, before it hastily halts as he clearly realizes that it’s his turn in the line, and the music is paused as Nate finally turns to look at him.

 

Wade has his arms full of packages, which he drops onto the conveyor belt with a smirk, raising one hand to wiggle his fingers at him daintily, something very much at odds with the man’s not at all dainty appearance.

 

“Hiya, babe, glad to see you’re still suffering in silence in this hellhole. Mind ringing these through? I got  _ plans  _ tonight.” This is all said as his face shifts suggestively, and if he had eyebrows instead of a textured plane of scars and tumors, he’d be wiggling them.

 

Nate almost doesn’t want to look this time, because that smirk does not bode well for his continued sanity.

 

But he does, because he’s always morbidly curious, and Wade has showed up for the past three days without fail with completely normal purchases and so he needs to know what he’s brought this time that garners making that face at him.

 

What stares back at him is the cartoon eyes of some kind of anthropomorphic wolf thing wearing a cap, and a shield that displayed the words ‘Paw Patrol’. What laid in a sort of mismatched pile around it was far more taxing to Nate’s patience.

 

He sees the lube first. A big bottle, declaring itself to be ‘warming, for her pleasure’, at which point Nate took a long look at Wade, who was now grinning like the goddamn devil, before sighing heavily and looking back down. Next is the multi-pack of kitchen sponges, and next to them a pack of lurid yellow rubber kitchen gloves.

 

He raises his gaze up to him again, pale blue meeting easily with the deep brown ones looking back at him, and says sweetly, “These really don’t match your complexion. Did they not have any pink ones?”

 

The bout of absolutely delighted laughter that rings through the checkout section stays with Nate for the rest of his shift, and even the absolute prick of a customer that comes about two hours later with a raging mind and a face that made Nate want to ask if he had ever considered going into professional wrestling, didn’t bring his good mood down.

 

He had the inkling of a paranoid thought, the thought that Wade had unerringly turned up at the same time every day he was on shift, not once making an appearance on the days that he wasn’t working (and he’d checked, sifting through his coworkers minds, seeking out the scarred visage of his favorite customer, and finding nothing). He wondered if he was being stalked, or just very unconventionally wooed.

 

Somehow, he thought there was next to no difference with Wade.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to Ryan and the Cablepool discord for suggesting this chapter's sin against groceries! I got a few more awesome suggestions that I'm already writing chapters for!


	4. Interlude: Wade's Roommates Are The Worst(tm)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Because I can't resist the comical chemistry that Deadpool, Domino and Weasel share, I had to provide a liiiiiittle of Wade's POV. This is being posted concurrently with the last chapter because I was torn between posting them as one chapter, hope the spam isn't too irritating!

The modest, even cushy home Wade shares with his (absolutely no longer his best) friend Neena and (definitely no longer best) friend Jack, is awash with the laughter of the aforementioned definitely not friends of his as he dumps his latest purchase on the counter. The cartoon puppy dog eyes practically leer out at him, amused in their own sick way as the two laugh and laugh and laugh.

 

“Yeah, yeah, laugh it off, Weas, I’m fillin’ these gloves with lube and a remote detonator and loading your room full of ‘em. Good luck wiping the debris off your walls.” Wade says pleasantly, even as he plucks at the fingers of one vividly yellow glove.

 

“Augh, jeez, c’mon, Wade, you  _ gotta  _ understand how funny this is, right? You’ve been stalking this guy for what, a little over 6 months now? And you only just got the nerve to talk to the dude by buying junk from his corporate prison.” Weasel, so aptly named for his weaselly face and lanky frame, grins, pushing his glasses up as he nudges Wade aside to rummage through the bag of purchases.

 

“Five weeks of hiding in the Walmart to get a peek at his schedule does not a proper relationship make, big guy,” chimes Neena from her spot at the stove, where she appears to be flipping some kind of omelette. He sidles up to her, only to receive an absentminded  _ whap  _ to the face with a spatula, and the woman grimaces as she tries to wipe it on her jeans. “Ew, cancer spatula. Nasty.”

 

“Maybe you shouldn’t’a hit me with it then, genius.” He flicks Neena on the ear, then gives her fluffy hair a bit of a ruffle as he peeks at the omelette. “Can I have some? I’m hungry.”

 

“If you’re so hungry, go eat your robot boytoy’s dick,” comes the scintillating response from Weasel. “Or go out to eat, you know if you wear the dumb supersuit you get half off at Pizza Hut.”

 

“It’s not dumb, and it’s definitely not a  _ super _ suit. Just my conveniently colored fightin’ clothes.” Wade retorts blithely, even as he decides to take the advice, wriggling out of his thick hoodie as he heads to his room, ignoring the mocking, ‘eww’s from his definitely, absolutely, not friends as swathes of cancer-ravaged and healing factor-traumatized skin are revealed.

 

Being a merc pays well, even if he hasn’t taken a dirty job since an incident with an ice cream cone, a belt of grenades and Wade’s left hand. He’s mostly in the leagues of a superpowered, lightly armed PI now. And he loves every damn second of it.

 

Especially since it pays his half of the rent (Neena pays the other half, Weasel pays in IT support and cooking dinner every night), and gives him the kind of spending money that lets him spend hours on end milling about in a Walmart, sneaking peeks at Nathan Summers’ face as he politely serves customers and wondering just what it would take to drop that perfect(ly handsome) customer service smile and get him to show him how he  _ really _ feels. 

 

He’s gotten close, he thinks, but he needs to go bigger.

 

A  _ lot  _ bigger.


	5. Oops! All revelations! (y'know, like the Cap'n Crunch cereal.)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> More Domino! More flirting! More revelations!
> 
> This chapter is one of the longest I've put out since I spent so long agonizing over it, oops!

It’s not like he was particularly waiting for Wade to arrive on this fine Thursday. No, he was actually just looking up at the clock to check the time until his next break. He wasn’t concerned that his favorite customer had missed his usual arrival time by about ten minutes, not in the slightest.

 

And he was only letting his mind reach out to brush random customers around the store to see whether there were any issues that he could subtly assist with.

 

But it certainly helped when he heard a young man think, [Ugh, what’s this freak even doing? He can’t lift that.]

 

This, combined with the image he gently lifted from his mind, of a surprisingly less clothed than usual Wade, less clothed meaning he wore a thin black t-shirt and jeans that seemed tighter than what could be actually comfortable, rather than his layers and hoodie and sweat pants. The textured expanse of his arms revealed the kind of tone that Nate wouldn’t have at all guessed from the concealing layers Wade usually wore.

 

[--’s he staring into space? Jeez, you’d expect better service from this place.] interrupts his musings on the way the ravaged skin would feel under his fingers, both flesh and metal alike. He shakes himself out of the thoughts to find a moustached older man glaring at him, and then looking pointedly at his items, a bottle of what looked like hair growth cream, a stick of butter and some milk (thankfully in an actual bottle).

 

With a murmured apology, he puts up his usual customer service facade, musters up a smile, and scans the items in hastily. It’s one of his favorite parts of the job, usually, setting up a mental stopwatch in his mind and timing just how quickly he could scan in purchases, big or small alike. His best time for a large assortment of items was, at last count, about three minutes and fourteen seconds. He prided himself on his speedy hands. Even if people looked at his TO arm sometimes and gave him this look of… well, it varied. Disgust, pity, jealousy, delight. Though he doubted those last two looks would last if he told them what he went through to get that arm.

 

This time, though, he’s just barely managing to keep a straight face while he listens in on the customer. He seems to be singing the theme song to Bakugan: Battle Brawlers to himself, rather emphatically even, given the minute twitches of his fingers as he gets to a rather intense guitar riff.

 

This inspired rendition distracts him from the huffs of exertion coming from someone a little further down in the line.

 

When he’s finished the transaction, waved the man off with a slightly more strained version of his polite ‘goodbye valued customer’ smile, he turns his gaze down the line again, and while he notes his next customer, a harried middle aged woman with the kind of multi-colored hair he kind of envied, and her thoughts of [--will this be enough for tonight? I can always get more dip if I run out, it’s not like it’s too far--], he’s much more enthused to see the customer behind her.

 

Wade Wilson, with a face screwed up in effort, a basket of items tucked into the crook of one elbow, and an absolutely  _ monstrously  _ sized bag of dog food. Now, he’s absolutely  _ sure _ they don’t sell dog food in that size. He wonders what Wade’s game is here. He wonders why the customers aren’t gawking at him. He’s wondering why seeing Wade’s lean but dense muscles straining as he tries to keep the bag balanced over his shoulder is so fucking hot.

 

He turns his gaze, quick as can be, before Wade notices he was staring, and finds the woman grinning at him knowingly. His tanned cheeks heat ever so slightly as he starts scanning through the multitudes of crackers and dip the woman is buying. Clearly she’s entertaining guests.

 

Her thoughts are particularly telling. [This’ll be a nice night, I’ve missed girl’s night. With Neena always busy with her mercenary whatsits, we haven’t done it in months. Thank goodness her schedule was free for the night.] He hums to himself, soft and considering, at the mention of a mercenary, a local one even. He’d been here a while now, and had heard nothing about merc activity in the area. Maybe they were just keeping a remarkably low profile.

 

To be fair, he’d more or less put superheroing and the like out of his mind. It was the realm of his parents, not him. He didn’t feel the same need to help humanity that his father did, nor did he feel the innate superiority that came hand in hand with his abilities, like his mother did. No, what he had was a pinch of apathy, a handful of annoyance with the world, and a decent scoop of superpowers that he intended to use to do minor good deeds.

 

He hardly leaves his thoughtful haze when he’s finished autopiloting through the transaction with the nice woman, not until a blue shopping basket is set down on the belt with a worrying  _ clink _ of glass against…. What the actual fuck.

 

There seemed to be not one, not two, but four bottles of tequila, both cheap and expensive alike. And they clinked and tinkled as they jostled each other, broken up only by the pack of cheap firecrackers that lay in their midst. 

 

That was not even to speak of the final item Wade held, the aforementioned ridiculously huge bag of dog food. 

Which he was still carrying, and it was a good thing blood probably didn’t travel into his face the same way it did before whatever made him look like that, because otherwise, he’d probably be red in the face and panting.

 

Well. He definitely was panting, ragged breaths ringing in Nate’s ears, undoubtedly preparing to make themselves known at an inconvenient or otherwise  _ very  _ convenient later date.

 

“Well, hellooooo there. Fancy seein’ you here at this place you work at.” Wade puts on a sweet, affected drawl, grunting as he shifts the bag on his shoulder to lean one arm on the side of the conveyor belt and grin at Nate.

 

Nate just looks unimpressed at him as he starts scanning through the firecrackers, and then the tequila. “You’re late.”

 

“Mm, had a bit of trouble with one of my purchases. Was hoping a big handsome half metal fella might hear about it and drop by to lend a hand.” 

 

“I was a little busy working,” he replies dryly as he slides the last bottle into its bag. “Do you need help with it now? You seem to have it well in hand.”  _ Very  _ well in hand, his mind insists lecherously, and he almost grins.

 

“Yes, I absolutely need help with it. Might even need a hand gettin’ it to the car. You  _ are  _ meant to help customers in need, right?” Wade insists, all earnest, bright brown eyes.

 

“....” Nate peers down his register. There is nobody waiting behind Wade. He then looks at him consideringly.

 

“Fanfic logic, babe, why would the author put something like responsible work practices in this? They just want that sweet, sweet romaaaance.” Wade’s explanation makes just as much sense as it did the first time he tried to insist this whole… thing of theirs was a falsehood.

 

“Or people just saw your massive bag of dog food and thought it wasn’t worth the effort to wait in line while we both struggled with it.” Nate says mildly. He offers him his usual customer service smile, though it twists in genuine amusement at the corners. “Hand it over, handsome, I’ll scan it in and you can pay. Then I’ll lug the damn thing out to your car.”

 

Wade seems rather taken aback by this, if the widening of his eyes is any indication. “I-- huh. Uh. Yeah, sure.” With a ‘hup!’, he heaves the bag over his shoulder, and right into Nate’s waiting hand. With a finesse that was honestly admirable as hell, he heaves it onto his TO shoulder, clearly not even bothered by the weight. He could lift about 20 times this if he flexed his slightly underutilized TK muscles.

 

He’s too busy scanning in the item, something that involves a very rigorous dance of squatting and keeping his balance while he passes the corner of it under the (regrettably non-removable, because his Walmart was too cheap to splurge on it) barcode scanner, to see the literal stars in Wade Wilson’s eyes.

 

Because  _ hot fucking damn _ .

 

When Nate straightens up, and goes through the usual motions, this time one handed, as his TO arm is holding the bag in place, face not even reddened from the exertion, Wade has, luckily, made his face blank again.

 

“Come on, grab your bags, you do actually need to show me to your car.” And with that prompting, Nate is slipping out from his station, and Wade is so lucky his back just turned, because the stars in his eyes quickly return at the sight of Nate’s thighs, confined as they are in khaki polyester blend. Hell, even his calves are magnificent.

 

Nate, happily unaware of this, just starts lugging the bag out, waiting until they actually make it out of the store before he turns to Wade. “Lead the way.”

 

Wade almost says ‘more like lead the  _ Wade _ ’, but the writer gives him a metaphorical slap upside the head, and so he says nothing and leads Nate out into the sparsely populated carpark.

 

When they arrive at the rather nice looking sedan, Nate is surprised to find someone is already sitting in the car. In the driver’s seat, even. A young woman, peering out the window at them with obvious amusement.

 

“So this is him, huh? And here I thought you’d never bring the guy out to meet me.” She says with a smirk, reaching one arm out of the open window, which he shakes bemusedly, raising a single brow at Wade, who looks a little embarrassed.

 

“Yeaaaah, so. I can’t… legally drive. Because of an incident which was  _ totally  _ not my fault!” That part he says while glaring at the woman, who is about one funny comment away from bursting into guffaws. “So I have Neens here to drive me. Neena, meet Nate, Nate, this is my housemate Neena! She’s the best. She knows how to flip pancakes without getting them stuck to the ceiling, and she’s got a lucky streak like you wouldn’t  _ believe _ .”

 

“Aw, you're sweet, I'm not  _ that  _ lucky.” Neena denies with a sweet little smile, cocking her head at him, the vitiligo patch highlighting the strange shade of one of her eyes. 

 

Nate, however, is now looking at Wade very closely, and wondering just how likely it is that Wade lives with a killer for hire. Because what he feels coming off her mind in waves with even the slightest brush… Well.

 

He does not say any of this, however. He just offers a smile, his usual polite one, and asks Wade, “Can you get your trunk open for me, real quick?”

 

Wade jumps at the chance to be helpful, beaming bright and absolutely beautiful, crossing round the car and pulling out a set of keys. 

 

Nate takes this time to lean in to the woman, smiling that same smile and asking in the same polite voice, “So you're a merc, hm?”

 

She barely stirs but for a slight furrow of her brows. “And just where did you hear that?”

 

[ _ In your friend's mind. Good luck at girl's night tonight, your friend is anxious to see you again. _ ] He sends this into her mind, and waits for a reaction. 

 

It doesn't come. 

 

“Oh, damn, didn't know he was shacking up with a-” Her only slightly surprised insistence is interrupted by Wade poking his head between them, looking a mixture of delighted and horribly embarrassed. 

 

“Who's shacking where? Trunk’s open.” Neena looks first at Wade, then at Nate, thinking, [You tell him?]. 

 

He gives a minute shake of his head, straightens with a smile, walking round to the trunk to deposit the dog food bag atop a very obviously false bottom. He then gives Wade another considering look.

 

“Anything else you need, then? Or can I get back to work?” He asks, feigning annoyance. He really wanted to get back inside where he can think on this for a while.

 

“Yeaaaaah, I guess we’re fine here. Me ‘n Neens got this covered.” Wade dismisses with a wave of a scarred hand. Nate looks back at Neena, who just smiles sweetly at him, even as she thinks right at him, [Has  _ he  _ told  _ you _ ?].

 

He raises a brow. [ _ Told me what? _ ]

 

Her smile widens, and takes on a big of a smug edge. [About what  _ he  _ does for a living. Weeeelll. Did. He kept the suit, though.] And then, she thinks rather intently on an image that is both troubling and.. hotter than it has any right to be.

 

Wade, in a near skintight suit of red and black, pulling his mask off as he wipes blood off his chin, grinning like a madman.

 

No wonder he was rooming with a merc, he was one too. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My sincerest apologies for taking longer than I meant to with this chapter, chronic pain's a bitch and my fingers have been alternating between cramping and just not working for the past few days!
> 
> (also pssssst, hi sarah, if you're reading this, we miss you, hope you're having fun on your holiday)


	6. a chapter about butter

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Today's sin against groceries: Butter!  
> Today's sin against common sense: Nate flirting with everyone's favorite merc!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> God, I feel as if I absolutely have to preface this chapter with an apology for the delay.  
> As I mentioned in the end notes of the last chapter, chronic pain's still a bitch! Depression is also a bitch.
> 
> But I've gotten some sweet, lovely, absolutely delightful comments, and I just felt compelled to finish up this chapter. In fact, this chapter's been done for a few days, I just wanted to pad out the word count because I felt it wasn't really sufficient for how long I've been working on it.
> 
> So, thanks to everyone who's commented so far (I'm sorry if I haven't gotten back to you, life's been a series of stress upon stress lately and so I've just been checking my emails and leaving it at that :')), and I really do hope you enjoy!

It’s Monday, and Nate’s had a nice long weekend think. 

 

It’s not like he particularly  _ minded  _ that the guy he had rather quickly decided he was into (after long consideration and pondering on feeling all that bare skin under his hands, lips and tongue) was a merc, or a retired one, whatever his roommate had said.

 

Once, even he had considered dabbling in mercenary work.

 

But he’d decided that just because he was an Omega level mutant, didn’t mean that it was his job to fix humanity. He didn’t want to. 

 

He wanted a small town life, a  _ human  _ life. Sure, the TO didn’t…. help, per se. But hey, at least people just thought he’d lost the arm and got it replaced. It was much easier to explain it as such.

He wanted his small town life, his little Walmart, and his wacky dumbass customer Wade.

 

The weekend think changed his opinion on that rather drastically. Now, what he wanted was his small town life, his little Walmart, and a boyfriend that also masqueraded as some kind of red spandex sex worker/superhero hybrid.

 

Now it was just a matter of letting  _ Wade  _ know that. He’d been told before that he could be a bit too forward in his affections. But he could be subtle, if he had to be.

Well. 

He could sure try.

 

And so, when Wade came waltzing through the checkout aisle, lugging along a basket which seemed to be full of sticks of butter, and, oddly enough, one single tub of ‘I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter!’, Nate was ready. And, very luckily for him, Wade was already wearing red, mostly red even, a loose red hoodie and, for some reason, red sweatpants, as if he'd just come here from a morning run (which Nate could swear the man had never even heard of). Which made his pick up line so much easier.

 

“You look nice in red,” Nathan says politely as he’s scanning through the sixth stick of butter, ensuring that he meets Wade’s slightly surprised face before he smiles and continues, “I’m sure you’d look nicer out of it, though.”

 

Nate’s down to one stick of butter by the time Wade’s stopped spluttering and hacking up a lung, or whatever it was he was doing on the other side of his little checkout station. He was pretty sure he’d ended up on the floor at some point, but he’d been both too busy scanning through yet another stick of butter (and seriously, was the man baking?? Making his own artisinal herb butters? Lubing himself up for a particularly fatty cage match? Just buying a metric assload of butter to confuse and annoy Nathan into asking about it? Yeah, good try, Nate would  _ never _ go to the trouble of that. Probably. Maybe.) and ignoring him passively to really notice the course of the scarred man’s sudden attack of nerves, or whatever it was.

 

“Yeah, well-” Wade clearly has to think about this one, because his face screws up just slightly, and he frowns, before his breath comes out of him all at once, and he just settles on, “Neens told me about you.”

 

Yep, that sure was a thing he just said. Of course Miss ‘Domino’ would be a tattletale. He wondered if she’d told him that he now knew about his line of work. He’d have to ask, he thought, even as he decided on the words to say to Wade.

 

“Yeah, figured she would as soon as you got back.” Despite being entirely unable to read Wade’s mind, he can transmit perfectly well, and his next words aren’t audible. [ _ Got a problem with it? _ ]

 

“Uh, heh, nope, none whatsoever! Just wondering if you’ve been able to read me for the past, say…. Few months? Six, to be precise?” And the look on his face shows Nate that he’s either very glad or very disappointed to be unable to read the minds of people like Wade. Six months, Christ. Either he had a hit on him, or Wade Wilson was just… very devoted to random Walmart cashiers. 

 

“Nope. You’re static-silence-nothingness to me. I think it’s got something to do with… well. All of that.” He gestures at him with one hand while he loads the final stick of butter into the bag with the other.

 

“Huh. Well, that’s interesting. She tell you about me?” The question is posed as if it’s no big deal, as if Nate couldn’t call any law enforcement outlet in the world and have him locked up for God only knew how many crimes (He’d looked him up. His previous work sure was something. Leaders of cults, leaders of countries, people good and bad alike. Never kids, though. Which sent a pang of something warm and too fuzzy for his liking through Nate’s chest when he noticed the pattern).

 

And Nate just grins, and Wade grins too, because he had, for once, finally gotten that phony, shitty customer pleasing smile off his face and replaced it with something real, something appreciative, adoring, amused and a little bit aroused all at once. The look in his eyes showed just how much he’d seen, just how much he’d liked it too. What could he say, spandex became him. Not that he didn’t like the face underneath. 

 

“She did. I’m sure it’d be nicer in person, though.” His smile becomes a little smirk, one of challenge.

 

Wade’s grin shifts along with the rest of his face, open, genuine and smitten.

 

“I’ll hold you to that, big guy. I’ll pay by card, by the way.” 

 

Between all the flirting, Nate had kind of forgotten he had an actual job to do, and with a hasty laugh, he fiddles with the stupid pressure sensitive screen, nearly breaking it with a TO finger in his haste, which makes the merc laugh, just the right side of brash and and just the wrong side of too affectionate for his own liking, and completes Wade’s transaction for him.

 

“Hope to see you again soon, handsome!” is the call Wade hears as he strolls off with a smile on his face that only grows wider.

 

“Count on it, babe!” is the response Nate hears as he cards his metal fingers through his hair and wonders, not for the first time this week, exactly what he’ll be getting himself into with this.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Do look out for a hopefully soon-ish interlude from Wade (and Neena)'s PoV, I've already got most of it written, I just need to put my dumb heat pack back in the microwave so I can heat up my fingers to the point that feeling returns to them!


	7. intermission: butter sculptures are apparently a thing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Neena drives Wade home after the previous chapter's ordeal, and Wade has a bit of a panic. 
> 
> Domino is a good friend and I'll never hear a bad word about her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Boy, I sure do love winter! Seasonal depression, an ever-failing knee and a stunning lack of motivation. Still, all you lovely commenters twisted my arm, so to speak (I already had half this chapter ready I just needed to finish it), and so here's an intermission chapter of sorts! A lead into the next one.
> 
> I'm starting to think I only have about 2 or 3 more chapters to go! Which includes an epilogue, because I feel like I gotta pad this out somehow.
> 
> Hope you enjoy!

Neena Thurman is sick to goddamn death of driving to Walmart. ‘Sure’, she’d said all those months ago, ‘I’ll take you there until you convince some backwards judge to give you your license back!’, and here she was, paying for it.

 

“And he smiled at me, Dom! He  _ really smiled  _ at me! Even though you were a complete fuckin’ spoilsport and told him all about me! He knows who I am, and he likes it! What the fuck did I even do to deserve this? Was it that time I killed that dictator dude? Or the time I killed that other asshole? Or-” Wade is slumped into the side window, hand bouncing against his knee, tapping over and over again, and if she wasn’t used to it by now, she would absolutely slap a hand down over his and tell him to stop it, but she was past that little phase, and it was more endearing than annoying now. There’s hearts in his eyes, and he sounds like he’s thirty seconds away from taking the wheel and turning them back around so he can go jump his half-metal husband here and now. She can’t allow this. And so she speaks up, in the hopes that it’ll cut him off at the pass.

 

“Wade, you’ve killed too many people to go down the whole list. Please don’t.” Neena peers at him from the corner of her eye, and he’s looking down at his lap again, and she doesn’t have to be a particularly handsome telepath to know what he’s thinking. “Is it so hard to believe that he doesn’t care? He works in customer service, Red, I bet he’s seen scarier people than you as his regular Friday.”

 

“He doesn’t work Fridays.” Is the muffled response into the sleeves of the hoodie, because Wade has his face in his hands now. “God, I need to move cities, I need to move back to Canada, this is the biggest mistake I’ve ever made, gettin’ involved with a goddamn telepath. Bet he’s a superhero wannabe with a dead-end job and some kinda X-Men blue ‘n yellow getup in his closet.  _ God _ , he’d look good in that, though. Ugh.” He trails off, thoughts clearly elsewhere.

 

“I don’t think he is. He knew who I was and didn’t care. If he cared about our- well, mine now- kinda work, he would’ve stopped being nice to you and called the cops or something. He didn’t. He spent three days thinking about it, and he still liked you, enough to flirt and everything, right? And he smiled at you. Didn’t you say he smiled at you?” Neena really didn’t want to play this game, this ‘reminding Wade that he’s capable of loving and being loved after Ness’ game, but she also really needed him to stop making her drive him to Walmart, and she was sure Nate had a car with which to drive the both of them.

 

“Yeah. He did, didn’t he?” And he’s perking up again, brightening like a sunflower seeing the summer for the first time in months, and goddamn, he’s far gone. She’s tempted to move out here and now, given the noises she’s pretty sure she’s going to hear from Wade’s bedroom over the course of the next month (because now that he knew the feeling was mutual, he couldn’t  _ possibly _ dawdle and dick about pretending it was all in his head, could he? No. He absolutely couldn’t) but he charges fair rent, and is honestly the best roommate she’s ever had if she falls asleep before his night terrors start.

 

“I gotta pull out all the stops, Neens, you’re gonna love it. Would you wingman for me? Sprinkle a little of that bullshit luck pixie dust on me before I go? All your luckiness could rub off and get  _ me  _ lucky.” She doesn’t even have to look at him to know he’s grinning like some kind of well-meaning demon, trying to seduce a corrupt businessman out of his soul, only this time it’s a tired looking half metal telepath, and he’s trying to seduce him out of his… heart? His dick? Both? She’s never sure with Wade.

 

“I’ll consider it. Only if you take out the trash every day until it’s done.” She knows he won’t do it, he hates taking out the trash almost as much as he hates having to clean the shower.

 

But he sounds so terribly earnest when he chirps, “Okay then! That’s settled. I’ll need to give my suit a little patch up, maybe practice a little dance. You think he’d appreciate a little musical number? I’m thinking Queen of the Desert style.”

 

“What  _ is  _ it with you and Priscilla, damn.” Neena jokes wryly, even as she turns onto their street.

 

“I dunno. It’s just always been near’n dear to my heart, I guess. The writer had to slip a reference in somehow, and wit ain’t quite their strong suit.” Wade shrugs fluidly, flashes a warm smile at nothing in particular. “I think they’re doin’ my baby right, though, if nothing else. Who says you can’t properly characterise without context?”

 

By this point, Neena has already left the car. She’s used to his tirades about writers and canon and scripts. He said something about it the first time they met. Something about her supposedly being white. She’d decked him, and he’d been kind enough to drop it until he saw someone else that apparently wasn’t ‘comic-accurate’. God only fucking knew what that meant.

 

He’s following behind now, butter bag swinging lazily from the crook of his elbow. “Hey Neens, could you go get the ice from the freezer? Imma make a butter sculpture of myself.”

 

“You’re… not actually gonna do that, right?” She asks, slow and a little confused.

 

“Of course I’m gonna do that. Why else would anyone buy  _ butter _ ?” Wade scoffs, looking like he’s a moment away from clutching his pearls.

 

“.......Oooookay. I’m just gonna go get changed, you have fun with your butter.” Ignoring his whining protests about getting ice, Neena puts a palm to her forehead as she heads off into her little section of the house. 

 

Every single Walmart trip went a little something like this, and she wished so badly that she’d just threatened a judge into giving Wade his license back. It wasn’t even as if he hit  _ all  _ of the geese, just enough geese to be considered a public menace.

 

The opening strains of ‘Closing Time’ ring through the house, and Neena gets the feeling that things are going to get better from here, somehow.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Huge thanks again to all the fantastic people commenting and reminding me that, yes, I do have to do more than wrap myself in blankets and RP Poolossus on Cherubplay.
> 
> Now it's just a matter of writing the next chapter, I guess! (Hooray!)

**Author's Note:**

> Big thanks again to the Cablepool discord for supporting this trash, thanks to Google for helping me look up how the fuck American supermarkets work, and the biggest thanks to Deadpool and Cable for being so delightfully good ship fodder for me to latch onto now that Homestuck's pretty much over.
> 
> I'm on tumblr, over at lupdeservesbetter, and on twitter as luprushesin, if y'all still use twitter (i don't)  
> Have a swell [insert time of day here]! <3


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